Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Brook on the Estate Tax

By Paul Hsieh

The January 9, 2010 edition of PJTV includes an interesting discussion by Yaron Brook and Terry Jones on the estate tax.

Apparently, due to a fluke in US tax laws, the estate tax for 2010 is zero percent. (It's scheduled to go back up to 55% in 2011.)

One of the points Yaron Brook discussed was this view expressed by Bill Gates, Sr. (father of the Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Jr) that, "Society has a just claim on our fortunes, and that claim goes by the name estate tax."

As Brook notes, this battle is not just over economics but over fundamental philosophy. Does wealth properly belong to "society" or to the person who created it? The way our country answers that question will determine our future.

The segment on the estate tax begins at 8:35 minutes, but I enjoyed watching the whole video. (You can click on either image above to go to the PJTV video.)

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